Pumpkin Recycling In Your Local Area

Pumpkin Recycling

What happens to your unwanted pumpkins after Halloween

There were an estimated five million pumpkins sold in the run-up to October 31st, what happens to your unwanted pumpkins in your local area after Halloween?  Here we look at Pumpkin Recycling.

Local Councils encourage you to recycle your pumpkins

Local Councils encourage pumpkin recycling by including them in your regular food waste collection.  Find out if your local council offers a household food waste collection service.  You can gather more information from Recyclenow.com

Pumpkin recycling makes an excellent addition to a home compost heap, not only is this idea environmentally friendly, but who doesn’t enjoy smashing a pumpkin to bits? just break it up and chuck it onto the compost. (please note DO NOT do this if you have applied any paint or artificial objects to it.)

Alternatively, just leaving them on the soil of your garden is adequate if you don’t have a compost heap. Place your rotting old pumpkin somewhere that you know ants frequently live or visit and just allow the pumpkin to start rotting. The ants will love it, the ground around where you place it will love it and it is a 100% hassle free way to deal with it! The ants will make your creative carving a thing of the past in no time.

With the average carved pumpkin weighing 5kgs and with one in five properties now purchasing a pumpkin as part of the annual festivities, the Joint Waste Team believes that by residents recycling this year’s pumpkins up to 180 tonnes of waste could be diverted from landfill.

Why not ask the local farm/farmer if he/she would like your old pumpkins for an animal feed!

Not only will farm animals play with it, but they will also eat them! Once again you need to make sure there is nothing artificial about the pumpkin, no paints, glitter or decorations.  Farmers love  recycling pumpkins, by using them as animal food.  It is a great way to improve the soil.

With sales of pumpkins growing year on year, it is increasingly important that pumpkins are not forgotten when it comes to pumpkin recycling and composting.  Halloween can be an ideal opportunity for parents to introduce younger children to these very important environmental messages. Its hard to say how many pumpkins find their way to landfill but it will be an estimated tens of thousands.

Love food and hate waste, there are a few recipes for pumpkin that you could try. These include pumpkin mash, roast pumpkin seeds and curried roast veg. Throwing away the actual food inside the pumpkin is a real waste of the money you’ve spent when there are so many great things you can make with it, and sending this food to landfill is also really damaging to the environment.

Large birds and small mammals will eat pumpkin seeds if you offer them in your yard. Collect seeds from your pumpkins, before composting them, and let the seeds dry. Please don’t add salt or seasoning. Place seeds on a flat surface, tray, shallow bowl, or mix in with existing bird seed in your garden.

We have talked about household pumpkin recycling and food waste recycling, but if you require a commercial food waste recycling facility, please contact Findaskip Ltd, we can source your food waste collection services.